For a discussion of the difficulty of separating a mixture of liquid and a fine, heavy phase material, reference is made to U.S. Pat. No. 3,795,361, issued Mar. 5, 1974 in the name of C. Y. Lee to the assignee of the present application. The disclosure of the cited U.S. Pat. No. 3,795,361 is incorporated herein by reference for centrifuge construction details, although the present invention does not require a conical or disc shaped baffle. Essentially, the present invention seeks to separate large volumes of feed in an efficient manner, and to produce drier solids than has been accomplished heretofore with centrifuges of the type described.
If the advantages of the present invention are to be understood, it is essential to appreciate the distinctions between centrifuges of the type set forth and centrifuges having an internal disc stack, such as shown in U.S. Pat. No. 3,799,431. Although the last mentioned centrifuge has discharge nozzles and provision for recycle, it is a separate class of centrifuge which has no mechanical device for advancing solids to their discharge.